The present invention relates to the field of computer keyboards, and more particularly to keyboards for which selected keys are programmed to effect text color changes and which are color encoded to indicate the resulting text color.
Most computer-generated documents have previously been printed with black text on white paper. When color was used in printed documents, it was common to minimize the number of colors used and the number of color changes due to the relative inconvenience of initiating text color changes. Even with the widespread availability of color printers, many documents such as letters, reports, and memos continue to be generated primarily in black and white despite a growing appreciation of the enhanced impact that multi-color documents can provide. One reason why computer users do not more freely utilize changes in text color to increase the visual impact of their correspondence and other documents is that most application software requires an inconvenient and relatively slow process to effect text color changes. A mouse may be used to manipulate icons on a function bar, but this requires removal of the hand from the keyboard. Effecting text color changes from the keyboard often requires a complicated multi-step series of keyboard strokes which are difficult to remember. Alternatively, the number of key strokes required to effect a text color change may be reduced by creating a programmed macro. If more than one or two text colors are so programmed, however, it becomes difficult to memorize the correspondence between the key combination that causes a particular color change and the desired color.